The present invention relates generally to the field of wireless media transfer.
Smart phones and other portable devices (e.g. laptops) have been provided which can access and play content (e.g. media) from the Internet. A new device has been introduced by Palm, Inc. which can interact with smart phones that have lower resolution and/or smaller screens than the device. The device is designed to transfer data between the device and the smart phone. The device is also configured such that it can play media.
Another device available to consumers is a Slingbox. The Slingbox is configured to provide streaming media to a device (e.g. smartphone, laptop, etc.) that contains a proprietary “slingplayer” application. The slingbox is configured to stream the media over a network such as a local area network in a user's home and/or the Internet. The slingbox system is designed to optimize the data transmission frame rate based on the data connection of the device and may or may not do so based on other factors. The slingbox receives the media it provides from other media sources such as a cable box, DVR (e.g. a TiVo brand DVR), or other media source through an A/V cable connection to the source. The slingplayer may be used to control the video source via the slingbox where the slingbox is provided with an IR blaster designed to send IR signals to the source. One model of the slingbox provides connection to multiple different media sources whose media can be streamed over the Internet.